Leicester-born entrepreneur founded company in Deloitte’s Tech Top 50

19th January, 2019

Pete Reis-Campbell

Pete Reis-Campbell was born and raised in Aylestone, and studied Graphic Design at Coventry University. He is now the CEO and Founder of the award-winning content marketing agency Kaizen. He has worked with global brands including River Island, Symantec and 888.com on innovative content marketing campaigns.

Pete began his journey by learning to code at eleven, borrowing books from the local Pork Pie library in Eyres Monsell, and built a website at sixteen from his childhood bedroom in Aylestone. His first job was a paper round, delivering copies of the Leicester Mercury for £8 a week. After University, Pete fell into the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) industry, helping brands to improve their rankings on search engines like Google, and won the Rising Star Award at the Travolution Awards for his work with Thomas Cook.

“I started to think about where the industry would go from there – the start of the road that led to Kaizen.”

Pete became an entrepreneur both to challenge himself and to make a real difference in the industry he had watched grow from strength to strength.

“Why fit into a mould that I knew to be imperfect, when I could set up my own company and shape everything round my own ideas?”

Pete began Kaizen in December 2013. Kaizen’s goal is to explore new technologies and create exciting, data-driven content. They provide brands with high-end media coverage that helps to generate visibility growth. Clients include major retail, travel, B2B and entertainment brands, such as npower, lastminute.com and TUI.

Recently, Kaizen was named ‘Content Marketing Agency of the Year 2018’ by The Drum, and was ranked as one of the top 50 tech companies in the UK by Deloitte, based on growth over four years. The company has grown from strength to strength, and is now a team of over 20, but Pete stresses how important it is to not forget your roots.

“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My parents were never part of the tech or digital industry, and much of where I’ve got to today is based on my own interests and ambition. What makes my business success all the more valuable, however, is the love and support of my family in Leicester, and that wherever Kaizen takes me, I can always know that there’ll be a whole team behind me in Aylestone. And I don’t even have to pay them.”